shakespeare: Incredible calculation ability by Tal.
At the end of all the fireworks he had an endgame with a superior k-side majotity - at least he thought so - 35....f5! 36.h3 h5! destroying Tals perspectives once and forever and Hecht would have had an easy draw.

Whitehat1963: I can't believe I've never seen this Tal brilliancy before. Is it me, or does Tal love to present his opponents with "simultaneity problems"? That is, "If you threaten this, I'll threaten something of yours that's even bigger, while at the same time giving you two targets to choose from, both choices being bad."

Mehem: The marvellous combination that leads to nothing if met with 21... Ba6! Besides, Hecht's 21... Nxh4 wasn't bad either - he lost the (almost) equal endgame because he was the much weaker player than the freshly dethroned World Champ.

clement41: Spectacular game, with a great number of zwichenzugs by Tal. 5 in a row (!) at moves 17 to 21, and (I love) moves 23-24 whereby white switch squares for his knight and bishop, and the attacked knight attacks via the c4 bishop the a6 bishop in a kindof desperado fashion; optimal use of the piece. 25 g3 brings about a (ghost) threat of ...Ng6 Nf5+ Kmoves Nxg7 Bxc4 Nh5+ (?) Etc.
There is a famous Korchnoi-Fischer game (1962, Curašao) where white is tactically outplayed by a tactic very similar to the idea of moves 23-24 (32 Rc1? Qa7! )

tonsillolith: <Whitehat1963: I can't believe I've never seen this Tal brilliancy before. Is it me, or does Tal love to present his opponents with "simultaneity problems"? That is, "If you threaten this, I'll threaten something of yours that's even bigger, while at the same time giving you two targets to choose from, both choices being bad.">

In go they have a term for similar situations: <miai>. What it refers to precisely is two locations A and B on the board, so that if either one of the players plays at A, then the other will play at B, or vice versa, and each possibility has (roughly) equal result.

Often miai will remain on the board for many moves, since neither player has the need to collapse the wave function yet. Perhaps it's comparable to the tension present in a 2x2 square of 4th and 5th rank pawns in a chess game.

PawnSac: yes agreed. Game of day is great.
but whats with the player of the day? If someone is worthy enough to be player of the day, can't we dignify him/her with a picture?

shouldn't there be a rule?... one can't be made player of the day without a picture! I mean, if you contact said player and tell him you wish to honor him as "player of the day" i'm sure most would be willing to provide a photo.

Senk: Annotations by Hans-Joachim Hecht (in German) can be found in Helmut Pfleger's book "Partien deutscher Schachgro▀meister" (1983). Hecht's autobiography "Rochaden - Schacherinnerungen" (2015) has this game with comments by Hecht and Tal (also in German).

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